


Balm of Personality

by Chickygirl



Series: Tom and 'Mione Moments [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M, Mother Hermione, Mother-Son Relationship, Motherhood, Prophecy, Prophetic Visions, Prophets, Son Tom Riddle, Unfulfilled Prophecy, War, lost war
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-31
Updated: 2020-05-31
Packaged: 2021-03-03 07:47:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,440
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24467452
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chickygirl/pseuds/Chickygirl
Summary: The war is lost, and so Hermione utilizes her last resort to go back in time to care for a motherless Tom Riddle.
Relationships: Hermione Granger & Tom Riddle
Series: Tom and 'Mione Moments [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1767313
Kudos: 57





	Balm of Personality

_ There is nothing as powerful as a mother’s love, and nothing as healing as a child’s soul. _

_ ~Unknown _

~.O.~

The young woman stood on the sidewalk of a grey and wartorn muggle London, her strange dark purple dress making her stand out in the poverty stricken neighborhood. Brushing her wild and frizzy curls from her face with a slightly shaking hand, the high quality fabric of her sleeve was pulled by gravity, exposing a red raw wound on her forearm.

MUDBLOOD… the mark of someone who had been through hell and back, surviving her ordeals with minimal damage compared to those of her family who were no longer for this world.

Wool’s Orphanage stood across from her, the slightly dirty and decrepit building causing a twinge in her heart as she saw the sad children sitting on the steps. Pushing back her shoulders in determination, a sad smile pulled at her lips as the passing words of two boys floated through her head in ghostly voices. Resolutely pushing all thoughts of her former life aside, she entered the slightly chilled building filled with loud children. Bypassing several children dressed in ratty and faded clothing, the woman followed the pull of her kind to an out of the way room within the second floor of the orphanage.

Entering the spare room filled with only a lone crib, a wooden rocking chair, and a bottle of formula sitting on the metal dresser, she peered into the wooden crib occupied by a wailing red faced newborn baby. Brushing one long finger along the baby’s chubby cheek, the wailing ceased momentarily with the opening of beautiful dark eyes almost as dark as the tufts of black hair sprinkled upon his tiny head. The sudden silence was then once again pierced by the child’s renewed screaming, more piercing this time around as if wanting more of the woman’s light touch. The woman hesitated once before slipping her hands underneath the infant boy’s little neck and legs wrapped in a scratchy blanket, cradling him in the crook of her arm as he settled down once again from his screaming cries to be touched. 

“Hello, Tom.” The woman smiled down at the boy, placing the nipple of the warmed formula bottle at his seeking lips. Wrinkling her nose as he wrinkles his own little face at the taste of the artificial milk, her lips pull up as she finally coaxes him into sucking as she lightly strokes her magic across him. “Don’t worry little love, we won’t have to drink this much longer.”

“Who are you? No one is supposed to be in here.” A woman with slate grey hair pulled into twirls on either side of her head, and dressed in a high necked black dress over hose stood in the doorway. Staring with wide eyes at the now sleeping child in the strange woman’s arms, the Matron took a step into the room. “That child has not stopped crying since his mother died two evenings ago.”

Looking back down to the child, the woman smiled once again at the sleeping babe’s now peaceful face.

“I would like to take this child,” she stood to the stuttering of the Matron, setting the now empty bottle on the low dresser. “His mother was my sister.” The lie slid easily off the young woman’s tongue, not willing there to be any issue in her taking the child out of this desolate place. Not that it would be an issue either way with her wand strapped to her right forearm.

“We were not aware that the child had any other living family other than his father.” Mrs. Cole blinked suspiciously, but not moving to take the boy from her. “He did not want him after the mother passed.”

Quietly padding towards the Matron who took a step back the closer her and the child got, she slowly cocked one eyebrow.

“He has no other family, you may take him if you wish.” The older woman told her haltingly, “But be warned, that boy has the stink of the devil around him.”

The young woman smiled, passing the elder as she moved to the side to make room for her, “So do I Madame.” Her bright white teeth grinned sharkily at the woman.

“What is your name, Miss?”

She turned around, tightening her hold on the child in her arms, “Hermione.”

Mrs. Cole watched as the young woman she now knew as Hermione took away the child who had left a small red burn mark around her right index finger as he had grabbed the first appendage he could when he had begun screaming once his mother’s soul left this world. She watched as the woman’s slight frame topped with caramel curls disappeared around the corner towards the stairs, pulling her injured hand towards her as she startled as a small crack shattered the silence of the second floor of Wool’s Orphanage.

~.O.~

_ Manic laughter echoed in her ear, throughout the pounding located behind her eyes. Cruel and filthy whispers were all around her, a hot, wet, throbbing pain centered on her arm that made her wish for a knife to cut the appendage off from her body that shot tendrils of pain towards her shoulder and put her teeth on edge… all for the sake of purity of the blood… _

_ Red pieces of hair all from the same loving head fell to the smoking and dead graveyard that used to be called home, adding to the bodies that already littered the grounds of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Sounds of the dying surrounded her until they went up into the smoke filled air and made it feel as if it were suffocating her for the sole purpose of joining them in their deaths… _

_ Hot stinging tears streamed down her face, the battlefield strangely silent as if she had gone deaf and blind to those that had defeated the light surrounding her and The- Boy- Who- Lived. Green eyes stared up to her, the glaze of death almost reaching it’s claws into them to pluck out the pure soul that resided within his broken and bleeding body. His shaking and weak hand reached up to her cheek, cupping it gently with all the strength that he had left… _

_ “Live… don’t ever give up...” The hand fell as if in slow motion, a cracked triangular stone ring resting upon a finger. _

_ The sounds of the dead and alive rushed against her senses once more, bringing her back to the reality that they had lost… they... lost the final war. Done. _

_ “Live...” echoed in the young girl’s head, prompting her to slip the ring from her dead brother’s- _

_ \- brother- in- arms’ finger and stand against those who had cloaked her world in darkness. _

_ She met the eyes of an ashen blonde headed family first, noting that they most of all looked as if they themselves were on the side of the lost battle instead of surrounded by their live comrades. Her eyes slipped past the jeering masses of black clad Death Eaters, Snatchers, and darkness sympathizers, meeting their leader’s red eyes last of all. _

_ Save the most important for last… her mother’s voice echoed through her memories… _

_ His head cocked slightly to the side as if wondering what she was to do next, his long fingered, sharp nailed hands loosely caressing the elder wand he had so coveted. Killing her best friend in order to obtain the long piece of wood. Killing so many people… all for a piece of wood and life of his own... _

_ His eyes widened in alarm, bloodless lips parting silently as he focused on her chest. Looking down to see what had the Dark Lord of Britain so shocked, Hermione saw a golden circle filled with a white sand glass hourglass clutched in her hands above her cramping stomach. _

_ She looked up with a slow pointed smile, meeting the eyes of the man who had wished to live forever… and turned the dial backwards… _

Hermione slowly awakened, feeling a cool hand on her wet flushed cheeks. Tom Marvolo Riddle, the Dark Lord that had destroyed her future and killed all those she loved lay within the crook of her arms and stared up to her with the expression of adoration only the purest of hearts could have for those they held dear.

“My sweet love,” Hermione smiled gently down to the lovely babe, swiping the emerging curls upon his head away from his forehead. Bending down she kissed his nose over to his cheek, rubbing her own against his lovely smooth skin as he began fussing. “Are you hungry my darling?”

Grabbing her wand from where it lay on a dark wooden desk baring the Black Family sigil, she unwrapped her red silk robe without disturbing Tom, and pointed her wand at her exposed breast. Murmuring a small spell allowing her to produce authentic mother’s milk for her new son, a small bead of white substance brought his rooting mouth to her nipple to allow him his feeding time. Tilting her head back, Hermione basked in the glow she had always heard about from her mother.

_ When you have a child of your own, Hermione, you will understand what it means to be a mother. To carry your child inside of you, feel the warmth of the life that you created laying on your chest, and you will want to cry with the joy of it all. That little life you hold will love you forever, and you will love them and go to the moon and back for them no matter what they do… _

Tears threatened to fall down the new mother’s cheeks as she looked down to the tiny helpless little boy in her arms. Completely trusting, and loving of the woman who held him in her arms. She had always wanted to be a mother, always wanted to feel the way that her mother had explained she would feel when looking at the little life they would cultivate and coax into a growing human being. Although Tom was not of her body, but that of a poor abused woman who thought drugging a man into loving her would be enough, she was his mother. And she would do anything to protect the little boy whose life she would save from becoming a monster. Even if she was protecting him from his own ambitions and desires.

~.O.~

“Mama!” Tom giggled one day as he toddled up to his mother holding a small yellow and black coral snake wrapped around his forearm. “I made a friend. His name is Eliptus.”

Hermione sat down her book on the small wooden table to the right of her, allowing the light breeze to push her hair back from her face on the cottage porch surrounded by trees. Smiling at her young son, she flinched slightly as the venomous snake flicked his red tongue out to taste the air. 

Holding her arms out to him, “Would you mind letting Eliptus go for now, love?” she asked. “I would like to speak to you about something.”

Tom smiled at her, showing off the front tooth he had just lost right smack in the middle of his bottom row. After crouching down and hissing once more at the small animal he jumped into her lap, their conversation delayed at their giggles once Hermione smothered his neck in kisses and tickled him in the process.

“Now, did the little guy tell you his name?”

Her small son’s brows furrowed in confusion at her, her fingers absently smoothing out the wrinkles. “Of course, Mama. He liked you, he said your hair looked like how his babies curl up together in the sun.”

Hermione’s tinkling laugh filled their backyard, a bird in the tree echoing her. “Mommy can’t understand snakes, my love. But tell him thank you the next time you find him.”

“Why can’t you understand them?”

She paused for a long minute, her own brows furrowing much like his had just one, promoting his little fingers to mimic her earlier actions. Smiling sadly, she kissed his little fingers before telling him, “Do you know why you look different from Mommy, why your hair is black as ink and mine is light?”

The boy shook his head slightly, seemingly distracted where his hand had twisted said curls around his fingers. 

“You didn’t come from my tummy, darling.”

“What does that mean?”

“I am not your real Mommy, love.” Her eyes filled with tears slightly as his eyes snapped to her’s in a child’s confusion. “Your real mommy, the one whos magic and blood you share and who grew you in her tummy until you were done growing into a baby was named Merope Gaunt. Your ability to talk to snakes comes from her blood, just as it came from her father’s, and was passed down for generations. Your Daddy’s name was Tom Riddle. Just like your own.”

He was silent for a good while, just before he grabbed ahold of Hermione as tight as his little arms could. 

“But you’re my mommy. I love you.”

~.O.~

Albus Dumbledore sat in the midst of his office filled with twirling and twinkling objects, a young girl with thick spectacles giggling madly underneath Fawkes’ perch as he swung his tail back and forth over her tiny nose. Before him sat the moving pictures of those within the  _ Daily Prophet,  _ once in which depicted the new Minister of Magic and his inky black waves so different from those of the curls of the woman on his arm. 

Extending his hand holding the papers within it towards the woman sitting across from him, he murmured distractedly, “It would appear that we were wrong Mrs. Trelewnay. It seems as if Grindelwald is to be our last Dark Lord within these years, for the time being at the least.”

Cassandra Trelwenay stared at the moving figures of Tom Riddle, Minister for Magic staring cold and emotionless dark eyes at those of the wizarding world, only for his lips to curl up easily when looking down to the woman who stood at his arm. The petite woman, with very much uncontrollable curls much like her own, starred up adoringly to the taller man at her side.

“It would seem not, Headmaster.” The Seer whispered to herself, the feeling of a weight being put upon her chest not abiding once her eyes set themselves upon the start of the article…

_ New Minister of Magic, Tom Riddle, standing with mother Hermione Riddle within the Ministry Atrium on the day of induction to office… _


End file.
